Star Walker
by LilacFree
Summary: This follows Tegan through 'Four To Doomsday.' In this episode, crucial to setting the tone of Tegan's role on the TARDIS, the Doctor discovers it's not as hard to beat Monarch as it is to get Tegan to do what he tells her.
1. Chapter 1 The River

I do not own Doctor Who. I am not Australian. I'm not even an Aborigine.

I think I have changed nothing canon, but I have added some new bits and scenes.

* * *

Author's Foreword: 

Tegan Goes Tribal: The Translation Issue From 'Four To Doomsday'

On Monarch's ship is an Australian Aborigine from 12,000 years ago. Tegan understands his language. There are a _few_ problems with this. Where did Tegan learn a 12,000-year-old dialect? Why doesn't the TARDIS translate this like it does the Greek and the Chinese? Even the Doctor doesn't seem to get a translation!

Apparently, the writers wanted to build up Tegan's character by showing that she is a) really Australian, and b) multicultural enough to be fluent in an Aboriginal language. I think they were so used to TARDIS translation that they forgot it should work all the time. Even if the Doctor speaks English, and I'm sure he's fluent without the TARDIS, it still has to translate Adric and Nyssa's languages.

Therefore, I am going to play with this not-so-shining moment and make use of it to bring an extra element to Tegan's characterization–that's what it's for, anyway. This story builds on the themes from my earlier story 'Walking The Labyrinth' in the Walkabout series, and revisits the noncanonical idea of the Master's influence on Tegan. It is set following 'Castrovalva' and runs concurrent with the events of 'Four To Doomsday.'

I want to state for the record that I have the knowledge of Australia and Aboriginal language and culture that one may gain through casual interest and being sprinkled by factoids while surfing the Internet. I am trying to be restrained in what I do, hoping to make no obvious glaring error. If I have, someone tell me so I can apologize. What Tegan learned as a child has been overlain by a European upbringing, and was not built upon by later study. It is not intended to represent any scholarly body of knowledge on Aboriginal culture.

- o - O - o -

Ch 1. The River

_'You can never step into the same river; for new waters are always flowing onto you.'  
- Heraclitus of Ephesus_

"You've got to be fit to crew the TARDIS. A trim time ship and a ship-shape team!" That's what the Doctor had said as he led them onboard.

Tucked away in the functional little bedroom on the TARDIS, Tegan mulled over those words. Did the Doctor think she was staying? Did he want her to stay?

It didn't matter. She needed to go home. This was no place for Tegan Jovanka. She had things to do at home. Her aunt's hideous death had to be dealt with. Moreover, as ridiculous as the others seemed to find it, she had trained for her job and felt as if she was shirking. Family, work, and life: interrupted for this opium dream existence.

There was a knock at the door, and the Doctor called, "Tegan, are you all right?"

She opened the door. "Yes, I'm fine. You?" To smile at the Doctor came naturally. Regenerate, he had the shiny newness of an angel descended from heaven into a cricket locker room. Tegan had to steel herself against the temptation to let him sweep her up in the floodtide of his enthusiasm. He radiated energy and joy, for all that he came to her door out of concern.

"Perfectly splendid. I wanted to be sure that you're well, and thank you for helping me. I'm sure you expected nothing so fantastic to happen when you went out your front door that day. You've been very brave." He smiled at her and she felt as though she'd been given a medal.

"Not exactly what I trained for, but I tried not to let the side down." Tegan felt her smile turn into a ghastly, arch thing. Why was she so nervous? Granted, he was an alien time traveler, but he was pleasant. Easy on the eyes, too.

Why did her gut clench like this?

He started to say something else, but she put a hand up, rushing along. "It's time for me to go home now. I'm here by accident, after all."

"Ah, yes," the Doctor's smile faltered only slightly. "If that's what you want, of course. You're not a prisoner, Tegan. I'll see to it right away." He left her.

For all the reassurance in the Doctor's voice, Tegan felt as if she'd failed him. Ridiculous. This was a place of science and reason, supposedly, and the logical thing to do was to take the primitive Earth woman back to her own time and place. Her request was sensible, reasonable, practical--"Hell's teeth!" Her hands were shaking. The Doctor was taking her home. Soon he'd open those impossible doors and she'd step out at Heathrow and then… and then, she'd get on with it.

"Oh, Auntie Vanessa!" Tegan bent almost double, grief-struck. Her aunt's little sports car was probably still sitting off the side of the road. Why hadn't Tegan just rolled that bloody flat to the garage and got it fixed? Why hadn't she ignored that damn police-box-that-wasn't? Now Aunt Vanessa was one of those grotesque little mannequins, made ludicrous as well as dead.

Tegan wrapped her arms around herself, holding on until her harsh breathing calmed. No time to break down. She wasn't safe. When she'd gone home and dealt with everything, then she could mourn. First, she'd have to deal with the Doctor. Tegan checked her appearance in the mirror, repaired her makeup, steeled her spine, and set out to face the situation head on.

When the Doctor failed to get her to Heathrow, Tegan honestly wasn't surprised. She had a feeling it wasn't going to be so simple. It was obviously like him to hare off after the least bit of mystery. Even Adric admitted it. Tegan was going to keep her eye on the prize. Heathrow, job. Job, Heathrow. That was reality, and she was going back to it. If she had to make the Doctor miserable every step of the way, then that would be two of them.

- o - O - o -

A Greek, a Chinaman, and a Mayan walked into a spaceship. Why? Trick question! The answer is, _because there was no bar._ Because the alien spaceship was full of humans from different cultures and eras.

Pity about the bar. Tegan could have used a drink. Where was the drinks trolley? It would have matched the food served in celled trays. Just one drinks trolley, just _one_, and she could pretend it was all a dream on a long international flight.

Tegan's pleasant flirtation with delusion was hijacked by a figure out of her childhood memories.

Kurkutji walked straight into her mind. He'd come for her. Tegan knew him for what he was on sight. He fit into some hole in her mind that was Kurkutji-shaped, or close enough. The shapes of his words weren't the ones she'd learned as a child from her nurse, but she understood them anyway. At her back, she felt the Doctor stir with surprise, then settle into intent watchfulness.

"We're all going to heaven," is how Tegan translated it to the others. What Tegan heard for herself was Kurkutji telling her she'd never get home. Fear collected in her middle like a swallowed ice cube. Round and round that ball of ice whipped her thoughts. Go to Heaven, but never get home; ever in Heaven and never at home; walk in the stars and always to roam; caught in the Dreamtime and imprisoned, doomed. The whirligig spun off words that tumbled from her mouth: home, afraid, trapped, leave!

- o - O - o -

As a child, Tegan had got in trouble more than once for translating the ideas she learned from the Aborigines in talking to her family. What seemed simple and right in one place was alien and wrong in another. Drawings came to life here! As in her childhood, they all ignored her. The more afraid she was the less the Doctor, Adric, and Nyssa listened. They were busy playing theories.

"And Kurkutji the Aborigine says it was so long since he was taken he can't remember," the Doctor said, turning to her. What Tegan heard was that the Doctor had understood Kurkutji himself even though he'd asked for her translation. Yet evidently, what he'd heard was not what she'd heard.

"But that's mad!" she cried, and it had nothing to do with the length of time it took to travel from Earth to Urbanka.

"Yes, so you keep saying, Tegan, is anyone saying you're wrong?" The Doctor flung himself into the seat next to her. She could feel his exasperation.

She tried to calm herself. What had Kurkutji said, as she understood it?

'Although we walk from one fixed star to another, each journey in the Dreamtime is new. Each step is again the first step, and no Song leads back where it came. Here is now, and always.'

No way back, no way home, ever to wander, lost and alone–

That wasn't her, that was the Doctor! In a nutshell, definitely. When they got separated from Adric and Nyssa, she had to stick with the Doctor. Someone had once told her that she must, no matter that he was mad.

"What if they harm them?"

"Why should they?" the Doctor replied maddeningly, as though the children in his care weren't missing on a spaceship of dubious refuge.

"I don't know why, but I think they will." The ice lay unthawed about her heart.

"Nonsense! It wouldn't make any sense."

"It doesn't have to. I think they're mad; I think you are, too." Tegan stared resentfully at the Doctor's calm profile.

"Well, take the advice of a madman, and look happy." The Doctor spoke with a tone Tegan knew from lifelong experience: the slip of the grip on one's temper.

"Why?" Oh, such a good question. Why anything, in this chaos?

"Try to look as if you're enjoying yourself. In these situations it's the best form of defence." He waved graciously at the alien called Persuasion. It was a display of noblesse oblige worthy of the Queen.

An alien madman, enjoying himself in cricket whites. With a _celery stalk_ on his lapel. Where the hell had that come from? Tegan felt her sanity slipping.

_No way back, no way_

- o - O - o -

The last straw hit the load when Tegan was informed that she would shortly be made into an android. "No, no, no!" she cried, each negative shriller than the last. She directed this monosyllabic protest at the Doctor. Wasn't he supposed to be the hero here? He was blond and English and had doubtless gone to Eton.

"It's all right, it's all right, just leave everything to me," the Doctor patted her arms. He didn't say, 'Don't bother your curly head about it', but he might as well have.

"I'm sick of leaving everything to you," she said. The Doctor ignored her. "You must be mad," she said, her icy heart cracking.

"Now stay here; you'll be perfectly safe; I won't be very long." He gave her three lies in one breath.

"I won't stay here!"

At last, he turned on her. His will struck out through the camouflage of noble British manhood and whimsical vegetation. Alien, ancient, wily, _dangerous._ Powerful, the only power that mattered here. _Time Lord._

"Yes, you will!" His gaze transfixed her, he pinned her with a pointed finger, he turned the words in her mouth to ashes.

He left her behind. Her life was in her own hands, now. How would she ever get home?

end chapter 1


	2. Chapter 2 Meltdown

Thanks to jenl25 and warinbabylon for beta-reading

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Ch 2. Meltdown

"_She could do nothing. No Earthling could possibly have the capacity." — the Monarch, on seeing Tegan enter the TARDIS_

_"Then our only hope is to get to the TARDIS and warn Earth." — the Doctor to Bigon (didn't someone already say that this episode? Would that someone be Tegan? Why, yes, now that you mention it)_

- o - O - o -

The room, shown them with the stated purpose that it was a place of rest, was like an industrial plant. Rest would be calibrated, measured, and inspected on those stark pallets. Everything was grey metal or grey plastic substance. Tegan threw herself about the area like a tiger pacing the limits of a Victorian era zoo's iron cage.

The Doctor had left her there and taken the helmet breathing gear with him.

_You are trapped, mocked a little voice in the back of her head. See her now, the strong, independent woman._

In a hideous abuse of metaphor, the glacier of her heart began to calve icebergs of panic. Crack!

Crack! (Adric's head hit the floor)

The stewardess training manual did not cover alien invasions of the Earth. Tegan had to wing it. It was her world, her responsibility, and her job. What was the Doctor going to do, when Monarch lost his patience? Whack him with a cricket bat? (Crack!)

How could she stand idle when her world was going to be invaded? She was mad now, too; maybe it took a madman to fly this mad machine called a TARDIS.

_No way back_

Tegan's fingers, ignorant but determined, moved over the array of controls on the console. She couldn't let Earth be invaded and the human race be reduced to computer chips. Someone had to do something, and the only someone to do it was her. Even if the controls of the TARDIS were exponentially more complex than those of a small plane; even though she knew this was madness.

Long ago, her father had guided her little hands away from the instrument panel of his plane. "You don't know how, yet. It's not safe. Don't touch, Tegan."

Salt thaws ice; tears pooled in her eyes and dripped mascara-tinged from the corners. Everything she'd ever known and loved would be destroyed, because Tegan Jovanka was an ignorant savage. She'd be like Nyssa: another orphan to cling to the Doctor's coattails, dependent on his limited patience and unbounded whimsy.

_walk in the stars and always to roam_

The rotor started moving, and Tegan's heart leapt, its icy sheath smashing into tiny grey chunks.

She activated the monitor and saw… that the TARDIS was just outside of Monarch's spaceship. Inside Tegan was a soggy, salty mess.

"Cripes. No. No, leave well alone." Panic in a crisis, Tegan, so mature. What did that training manual say–Oh. _Manual._

There was indeed a TARDIS Type 40 manual, but it was a lot of mumbo-jumbo as far as Tegan was concerned. It was hard evidence in writing that she was a fool.

Naturally, she threw it on the floor, stamped on it, and kicked it for good measure. Even fools need stress relief. But afterwards, there still she stood in the bright, exposing light of the control room. Alone, charged with saving the world, and not an ice-cube's chance in Hell of doing something about it.

_caught in the Dreamtime_ _always the first step_

"What have I got to lose?" Tegan muttered darkly. Around the console again, try that control again. Maybe the impossible would happen. And maybe an angel would come down from Heaven and fix everything. Yeah, right.

_(Farewell, said the Monarch. In space forever, going nowhere.)_

- o - O - o -

When the Doctor stumbled in from the void, spacesuit optional, she was too relieved to ask how he did the impossible.

_No way_

The Doctor's hands moved over the same controls hers had, but the TARDIS, his old girl, now responded sweetly. To Tegan he said, "Just do what I say and do it _quickly_."

The Doctor's will carried Tegan in his wake. With only token protests, she followed him; she ran when he said, "Run!" He was the only power that mattered. He was the someone who did something about the crisis. Tegan? She was the helmet carrier. The problem was, they were one helmet short.

"Doctor, what about you?" He was risking his life instead of theirs; remorse was in her voice.

The Doctor spun some story about being able to hold his breath a really long time. Even now, the little mocking voice in the back of her head couldn't resist a jab about his being able to shut up that long. Only the Doctor's hoarse gasping drowned it out. Tegan stood by and watching him die breath by breath. It seemed like forever until the spare helmet was assembled for him. Tegan could do nothing. She hated it.

The Doctor completed his hero act by cutting Monarch down to size. She just wanted to go. The Doctor had promised. If he could do all this, surely he could get her home. No matter what Kurkutji said. _She_ wasn't an Aborigine. Tegan Jovanka was a European tourist to someone else's reality. She should never have drunk the water, and the jet lag was killing her. Home: shrunken aunts and flat tires and drinks trolleys. Home: high heels, short skirts, and lipstick. Leave star walking to adolescent geniuses and tetchy angels.

- o - O - o -

Nyssa fainted of some alien ailment, and with the last dregs of her ability to give a damn, Tegan helped get her into bed. Then Tegan ducked into the anonymous room she'd used before. She curled up on the anonymous bed and suffered the frost heaves of trauma. Or maybe it was the bends from too rapid decompression of terror? She hurt. Every cell of her body, every corner of her mind.

She worried about Nyssa. Oh, that helped Nyssa so very much. Nyssa would be fine now that Tegan was worrying about her.

_You whinger._

Tegan had failed before, many times. She'd got up and tried again. Quitting and failure were one in her mind. Now she drove herself to her feet with the whip of anger. What good was having a bad temper if it couldn't get you moving?

When she opened the door, she found the Doctor on the other side. He did have a way of turning up unexpectedly. "Just the person I wanted to see. We need to have a talk, young lady."

Guilt was flammable, and knowing she was in the wrong didn't stop guilt from fueling her anger.

"You're right about that. What's the ETA for our arrival at Heathrow?" Tegan's bullheaded way of attacking from a weak position had been surprisingly effective in the past.

"The TARDIS is not on a schedule." The Doctor took a step closer. His new face was mild by default, but hard lines of anger were undermining a naturally pleasant physiognomy. In short, he was pissed off. "You do understand that you endangered us all by your reckless behavior?"

"I'm sorry! But I had to do something!" Her back was against the wall. She was conscious of his height like this, though he didn't loom as effectively as had his former incarnation. That one had been more frightening. His voice had conveyed boundless authority. This one was wearing _celery._ No one was afraid of _celery._ Tegan Jovanka certainly wasn't afraid of _celery._ Not even a little bit.

The Doctor took her by the arms and leaned down to stare her directly in the face. "You could have done as you were told and not charged off in a panic."

The words hit home. Tegan's eyes stung. No, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of tears. She thrust her chin out, relying on the stubbornness bred in her bones, and held his gaze. "I'm not going to stand around and wait for the world to end!"

She saw his jaw tighten. He didn't shout, but his temper was roused enough to let him give her a little shake. "It will end faster if you let panic guide your actions. You need to. Listen. To. Me." His grip tightened to the point of pain. They were both breathing faster. She could feel his breath on her face. His eyes flickered.

_He's going to--_

And then he wasn't going to; further more he was never going to; he dropped his grip so fast Tegan's knees sagged in reaction. The Doctor walked away, quick strides floating his coattails.

Every nerve ending in Tegan's body was tingling with fear and anger and other things she was not going to admit to. Anything more than anger in his eyes had been her imagination.

Anyway, he'd hijacked her in the first place, no matter how inadvertently. One hijack deserved another, right? Right. She'd go sit with Nyssa. That was doing something. Being there for a friend was something worth doing, even if that was all she could do. Nyssa? Friend.

The Doctor? Impossible.

_  
"Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.'_

_- Heraclitus of Ephesus  
_

The End


End file.
